Congratulations to all the recipients of the 2024-25 Inwood Art Works Filmmaker Fund. These are their stories that we’re helping bring to the screen.
The Fund was created to financially support and encourage the creation of locally-made independent cinema in the Inwood NYC community, which includes Inwood, Washington Heights, Harlem, Marble Hill, Kingsbridge, and Riverdale. Now in its sixth year, the Fund has persisted to “green light” the visions of nine local filmmakers with awards totaling $42,500 – a new record. More than 67% of the grant money this year was awarded to women and minority filmmakers as part of our goal to reflect the diversity of New York City and the Uptown (Manhattan/Bronx) community in our programming.
This award not only functions as an unrestricted production grant for the creation of new work by New Yorkers, but also funnels capital into our local artistic economy. Thus far, IAW has provided almost $150,000 in grants to 41 local filmmakers.
More information about the Fund submission criteria can be found on our Filmmaker Fund information page.
Project Title: The Choice
1889 New York. A husband brings his wife to his physician/alienist when he discovers that she is practicing birth control and depriving him of an heir. The physician is charged with helping this woman see the errors of her ways and follow traditional culture rules. He gets more than he bargains for when he meets Camille, a strong, smart, free-thinking woman.
Leslie Kincaid Burby is an award winning director, dramaturge, and performer residing in northern Manhattan. Her film, Robin Hood, made in collaboration with Pied Piper Theatre Company, recently won multiple awards in the Hudson International Film Festival and was honored with the Inwood Film Festival’s “Spirit of Inwood” award. Her film Mercy is now being entered into the festival circuit. In the theater world, Leslie has received the New York Innovative Theater outstanding director award for her Drama Desk nominated production The Navigator by Eddie Antar at The Workshop Theater (New York Times Critic Pick). She also received the New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for her direction of Sean-Patrick O’Brien’s Zamboni. Recent theatrical productions include The Barn Play (Up Theater); Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound starring Emmy Award winner Kim Zimmer (Gretna Theatre) and a critically acclaimed production of The Chekhov Dreams, by John McKinney (Beckett Theatre/Theatre Row). Leslie has directed and developed numerous new works, including New Canaan by Jessica Durdock Moreno (featuring Debra Jo Rupp), and American Portraits by Devon O’Brien (featuring Kate Burton).
Project Title: An Act of Penance
A young actor prepares for the role of Dimmesdale in a theatrical staging of The Scarlet Letter, but as he strives to fully embody his character, his past comes back to haunt him, and the lines between reality and fiction blur.
Caleb Clarke is a Manhattan-based writer, director, and editor who is drawn to themes of grace, shame, and redemption as well as the destigmatization of mental health issues. In 2023, he directed Unseen, a short film focused on faith and mental health produced through Times Square Church. Caleb has shot and edited branded content, music videos, a dance film, and worked as an additional editor on a feature length documentary for Athletic Brewing. Currently, Caleb resides in Washington Heights surrounded by many actor friends who inspired him to make the theater world the setting of his upcoming short film An Act of Penance. You can view more of his work at calebmclarke.com.
Project Title: Blood and Sex Over Ambition
In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin shared a home in Provence, France for two months, at the end of which Van Gogh suffered a breakdown. To this day, no one knows what happened. Or do we?
Chen Drachman is an Israeli-American, award-winning actress and filmmaker based in NYC. Chen’s first film, The Book of Ruth, starring Tony and Emmy Awards nominee Tovah Feldshuh, has been in over 40 festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including the Academy-Award Qualifying Cinequest, and the Canadian Screen Award Qualifying Vancouver International Film Festival. The film won multiple awards and since it concluded its festival run, it has had more than 150K views online through Omeleto. Her newest film, But I’m a Shoe, starring The Legend of Korra’s Janet Varney has its world premiere at the Academy-Award qualifying St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2024. Her newest short script, Blood and Sex Over Ambition, was a quarter finalist at the Hollyshorts script competition and a semi-finalist at the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival script competition and is set to film in 2025. You can view more of her work at chendrachman.com.
Project Title: The New Neighbors Association
A newfound HOA sprouts in an existing neighborhood haunting an unsuspecting family.
Carlos Hiciano is a multifaceted artist whose primary medium is the written word. From stories to poetry to songs, Carlos uses language as a tool to explore, connect, and make sense of the world. His work is shaped by a sense of childlike curiosity, driven by an impulse to create art that is at once raw and refined, intense yet gentle, heavy yet poetic. At the core of Carlos’ artistic practice is a deep sense of justice. His work is a response to the complex and often fraught social realities that shape our lives. Carlos engages with themes of identity, race, family, and society, as well as the moral ambiguities that arise in the face of injustice.
Project Title: With Iron Teeth
A woman who scams senior citizens out of money learns that stealing from the wrong person has terrifying consequences.
Rachel Kerry is an award-winning filmmaker & theater director who specializes in horror comedy, musical theater, and interactive storytelling. Her work has been hailed as “unabashed extravagance” by Time Out, “triumphantly weird” by io9, and “uncompromising parody” by The Scotsman. She received her MFA in directing from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art and graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Theatre from the University of Southern California. Her theatre directing has been featured in FlameCon, Perth’s Fringe World, Bondi Feast, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, FringeNYC, FRIGIDNY, and the Cirque du Soleil telecast Moving Stars and Earth for Water. Her filmmaking has been featured in ABC Rage, Midsummer Scream’s Screaming Room Film Festival (audience award winner), the Queer Fear Film Festival, the Dark Red Film Festival, and Filmshop Presents. In 2024 she was selected to be one of 10 fellows as part of Filmshop’s Breakthrough Series. She currently works for the Atlantic Theater Company and is a proud resident of Inwood, NY.
Project Title: Play it in Woo
Philip Woo, a 5th generation Chinese American musician, comes of age in late ‘60s Seattle to play keyboards with such funk and soul luminaries as Roy Ayers, and Frankie Beverly and Maze, becoming one of first prominent Asian American players in the funk and soul scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Steven E. Mallorca is an award-winning filmmaker and musician who graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As a director, editor, and director of photography, he has produced a large body of work that spans across narrative, documentary, commercial, and music video film fronts. Steve co-directed, edited and shot A Peloton of One which won the 2020 Greenwich International Film Festival Audience Award, was released in February 2022 with Laemmle Theaters, and available on most streaming platforms in March 2022. Steve also served as the Director of Photography and Editor of the 2015 ESPN documentary, The Lost Trophy. His directorial feature debut, Slow Jam King, was hailed by the New York Times as “Do it yourself filmmaking at its purest… with spirited characters and high levels of comic energy” and won Asian Cinevision’s Emerging Director Award. Steve is also the series editor for San Francisco Opera’s 2022 Webby Award-winning documentary series, In Song, as well as Cleveland Orchestra’s performance and documentary series, In Focus. Steve is also an independent musician, and in December 2022, he released his 3rd album under the moniker Sulu and Excelsior, So Ends the Honeymoon, to critical acclaim.
Project Title: Deepest Corners
Annie, a busy wife and mother by day, is haunted by recurring dreams about her former life as a dancer by night. A chance encounter forces her to confront her feelings about her past which she realizes she can no longer ignore.
Clare Parme Miller is an actress and writer based in New York City She values authenticity, spontaneity and play. She has a BFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota / Guthrie Theater Actor Training Program. Her theater credits include Those Who Favor Fire at the Guthrie Theater, The Sexual Lives of Savages at Walking Shadow Theater, School for Scandal at Riverside Theater, Comedy of Errors at Idaho Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (touring production) at Hudson Valley Shakespeare and Cry It Out with Thrown Stone Theater. Her film and TV credits include Studio Luma, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as well as several commercial and voiceover spots. She’s no stranger to a film set! She has helped both on and off camera on many projects alongside her husband, Brian Miller, a frequent Inwood Art Works contributor and supporter.
Project Title: North Fork Women
North Fork Women is a short documentary about an organization that started in the 1990’s after the traditional healthcare structure failed the lesbian community on Long Island.
Megan Rossman is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor and Chair of Communication at Purchase College. Her work has aired on PBS and screened internationally at festivals including Outfest, DOC NYC, BFI Flare, Iris Prize and Cannes Film Festival American Pavilion. Her feature-length debut, The Archivettes, has screened as an official selection at over 75 film festivals. The Hollywood Reporter called the documentary a “warm tribute to second-wave feminism.” The Queer Review called it “a gift to the future.” It has won various awards, including the audience award at Reeling and the jury award at Centro Niemeyer International Festival de Cine. Her short, Naomi Replansky at 100, won the audience award at Paris International Lesbian & Feminist Film Festival in 2020. Her film Love Letter Rescue Squad won best student documentary in the Emerging Filmmakers Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival American Pavilion in 2017. She is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award. Rossman has also worked as a multimedia journalist at The Washington Post and as the director of video at Teach For America. In 2011, she won an Emmy for her video Unfinished Business: Earth Day, 40 Years Later. In 2009, Rossman collaborated on A Mother’s Risk, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting.
Project Title: Embodied
Embodied is a short documentary that shares the voices and experiences of terminally ill individuals. Through experimental animation, participants reflect on lessons illuminated by mortality, share the reality of their dying process, and open dialogues around compassionate deathcare.
Samuel Wright Smith is a multimedia artist based in Manhattan. His experimental animation work has shown at such festivals as DOCNYC and recently in a documentary produced by PBS. He is an NYU Tisch Film/TV graduate and interested in projects that blur imagined boundaries and explore connectedness. Samuel’s animation work is primarily out-of-the-box physical media techniques such as watercolor, linocut print, collage cutout and oil pastel. When not creating, you can find him sitting by the Hudson or communing with birds in Inwood Hill Park.